


When Mom was Alive

by Hawkingjay



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Collection, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 10:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6150868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkingjay/pseuds/Hawkingjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles based on the AU where JD's mom lived instead of his dad, and he grew up to be somewhat human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You and Jason did what?!

JD and Veronica had been friends for years, which is why Veronica thought the crush she’d developed on JD sophomore year would never in a million years be reciprocated. It stressed her out, especially because she couldn’t even talk to Martha about it, since Martha was the third member of their best friend trio.

She’d spent a year and a half pining, but it took her completely by surprise when JD kissed her.

It was quick. She barely had time to process it before he pulled away. He ran his hands through his hair.

“Shit, Veronica. I’m so sorry,” he said, “I ruined everything. We’re great as friends, I don’t know why-”

Veronica kissed him. He was surprised for a second, before he returned the kiss with a fervor. It was thrilling, and a bit scary, since it was her first real kiss. Eighth grade boyfriends don’t count, Heather Chandler once told her. Still, she followed his lead when he headed over to his bed. He turned, so that she fell onto the bed, and started kissing from the side of her mouth to her jaw and down her neck, occasionally sucking gently on a particular spot. She gave a content sigh and took of her cardigan, because she was getting really hot. She kissed him on the lips briefly before kissing along his jaw line, not really sure where this was going. Luckily, she didn’t have to figure it out. Unfortunately, it was because JD’s mom burst in with a tray of brownies.

“Jason, how many times do I have to tell you, when company’s over, the door stays- oh,” she said. Her eyes flickered to Veronica’s cardigan on the floor. “I’ll give you a few minutes, then I want to talk to you downstairs.” Veronica and JD exchanged a glance, before JD flopped onto his bed and groaned. Veronica kissed his forehead and laughed.

“I want you to know that I’m happy for you, but I also want you to do what’s best for you,” Mrs. Dean said. JD couldn’t look more embarrassed, not even if Martha dragged him to yet another football game so that she could cheer for Ram. “I know you’re young, and you’re going to do what you’re going to do. I just want you to be prepared.”

Oh.

Now Veronica understood why JD was so embarrassed. JD’s mom proceeded to give them the most awkward version of the talk in history, and Veronica had gone through health class with Mrs. Fleming. 

She was still shaken a few weeks later, when her parents called her down to a family meeting. She hesitantly trudged down the stairs from her room, to the coffee table, where her parents were sitting.

“Veronica, sweetie, it’s hard for us to accept you’re growing up. Since you’re becoming a young woman…” Veronica tuned her mom out and turned her attention to the coffee table. On said table were multiple pamphlets with titles like “Your Changing Body” and “STDs are Scary”.

“Please tell me you’re not giving me the talk,” Veronica groaned.

“Veronica, this is very important-” her mom said.

“I already got the talk from Mrs. Dean. I don’t need it again.” Of course, Veronica regretted the words the second she spoke them. Her parents looked shocked.

“What do you mean, you already got the talk from Mrs. Dean?” Her dad asked. Veronica cringed.

“I’m calling Sally,” her mom said. She strode towards the kitchen and plucked the phone off of the receiver.

“Hi, Sally? It’s Midge. Veronica told me something very interesting today.” Veronica couldn’t bear to listen to the conversation. However, she couldn’t ignore her mother’s panicked reaction to something “SHE AND JASON DID WHAT?! I’ll have to speak with her. Thank you, Sally.” Her mom slammed the phone back in place.

“Young lady, did you have sex with Jason Dean?” her mom asked. Veronica was now roughly as embarrassed as JD had been when his mom had given them The Talk.

“No! We just made out. It’s not a big deal,” Veronica said, trying to calm down her mom. It obviously didn’t work.

“Not a big deal? I don’t think you understand how serious this is. Go to your room.”

“But-”

“You’re grounded! For two weeks! Forget about movie night with Martha.”

Veronica groaned and headed back up to her room. She tried to think of a way to explain this to Martha.

Martha had been surprisingly understanding, suggesting that they make up with double movie nights for the next two weeks after she was grounded. She was still languishing in her room on Saturday night. She was pretending she was actually in the mood to be reading Sallinger. Of course, she was trying to kill the utter boredom that had penetrated her soul. Her window cracked open.

“Greetings and salutations,” she heard a familiar voice say. She saw none other than JD waving at her from the window.“

"What are you doing?” She said with a laugh.

“It’s dreadful etiquette, I know,” he said, “but I figured you could use some company since apparently your parents think we’re fucking like crazy.” Veronica laughed at that comment and he climbed in the window.

“Any plans for our evening?” Veronica asked. JD frowned.

“Not really. To be honest, I didn’t really think this through,” he said. He and Veronica sat in silence for a few moments before Veronica’s eyes lit up.

“I have an idea,” she said coyly, “are you a fan of irony?”

“Sounds perfecto,” he said, and then she kissed him.


	2. Twenty-Five

It took Sally less than a minute to notice the ring on Veronica’s finger. Veronica could tell that she rushed through the usual formalities, although she still wrapped both Veronica and Jason into a big hug and told them both how much she missed them and how “Jason Dean do you know how lonely I get now that you’ve left me alone?”

“So what’s with the ring?” she asked, pointing to Veronica’s left hand.

“That’s why we came to visit, Mom,” JD said. “Veronica and I got engaged.”

“I’m so happy for you two!” she said. She hugged them again, absolutely beaming. It took her a while to let go of them. “Are you pregnant or something?” she asked Veronica.

“MOM!” JD said. Veronica blushed furiously. “Why would you ask that?”

“I mean, you’re both kind of young…” Sally said. Veronica was still too shocked to respond.

“Mom, we’ve been dating since high school, it’s only a time before I went down to McNamara’s to get a ring.”

“Still, it’s not exactly outside the realm of possibility,” she said, shooting him a pointed look.

“Oh my God,” JD said, putting his head in his hands. Veronica had a look on her face that even she probably wouldn’t know the meaning of.

“Do not pull the innocent act with me, Jason.” Sally said sternly, “I have walked in on you two too many times for that to work.” Jason cringed, while the statement triggered something in Veronica. She started to laugh loudly. Both mother and son gave her a strange look.

“Sorry, nerves, I guess,” Veronica said, once her laughter finally subsided.

“Well, God knows I can wait for grandbabies,” Sally said with a soft smile. “Welcome to the family, Veronica.”

“What little of it’s left,” Jason muttered.

“Jason!”

“Sorry, Mom.”


	3. Seventeen

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Veronica’s father demanded. Veronica and JD sat in solemn silence. Mr. Sawyer paced around the room while the two mothers stood stiffly in disapproval. While they were glad they didn’t get arrested for public indecency like Officer Milner had threatened, they weren’t so thrilled when he called their parents.

“Heather told me it would be fun,” Veronica said, hoping to deflect some of the blame off of herself.

“Veronica, don’t lie to us,” Mrs. Sawyer said, “Heather is a nice young lady. There’s no way she would say anything like that.” JD immediately started laughing at that idea, since none of the Heathers were “nice young ladies”.

“Do you think this is funny, young man?” Sally Dean asked her son, trying to look as stern as she could. Unfortunately, Sally had soft eyes and was the source of her son’s freckles, so it was hard for her to look intimidating. The fact that she was attempting seemed to amuse Veronica to no end. She tried to hold it in, but soon, she was joining JD in laughter.

“Well, obviously we’re not getting through to you two by just talking,” Mr. Sawyer said, “Veronica, you’re grounded for a month.”

“You too, Jason.” Mrs. Dean said. “and if I catch you outside of the house for a reason other than school, I’m doubling it.”

“And Veronica, you have to explain to Martha just why you’re missing movie night,” Mrs. Sawyer said. The thought of explaining the embarrassing situation to her best friend immediately sobered Veronica.

“Mommmm,” Veronica whined, “that’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Mrs. Sawyer said. “Now go to your room.” 

The next day, Veronica was surprised to see Heather McNamara of all people at her locker.

“I hear you got grounded because you took Heather’s suggestion,” Heather said, “so I figured you could use these,” She said. Holding up walkie-talkies covered in unicorn stickers. “They’re kind of old, but they work for really long distances, maybe you and Jason could use them to stay in touch.” Veronica thanked the yellow Heather, wondering if one of the Heathers could be a nice young lady after all.


	4. Twelve point nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School dances are always awkward

Jason sat in the corner of the Ashford Junior High cafeteria, drinking watery punch, and watching Ram Sweeney try and detach his lips from Heather Duke’s headgear. He watched the awkward spectacle, hoping that one of the teachers wouldn’t break it up, because it was truly hilarious. His mother was too busy trying to break up Kurt Kelly and Heather Chandler, who had been dancing a bit too closely for comfort.

And yes, part of the reason why Jason wasn’t having fun was because his mom had volunteered to chaperone the dance, though most of it was because he just wasn’t a social kid. Even awkward Betty Finn was managing to dance with Dwight. Well, it wasn’t really dancing so much as an awkward sway to and fro.

“Hey,” Martha said, sitting next to him, holding a paper plate filled with animal crackers. Like him, she was dressed up for the occasion, although his tie was undone and his shirt was halfway tucked in, while she looked as nice as she did when she arrived.

“This blows, doesn’t it?” he asked. She hummed in agreement. She was staring sadly in Ram’s direction. He had managed to get himself untangled from Heather’s orthodontia. “They’re not worth it.”

“What?” Martha asked, confused.

“They’re not worth it.” he repeated. “Everyone else is having fun because they’re all pretending they don’t hate each other for a night. It’s not worth putting yourself through the exhaustion of pretending, say… Heather Duke isn’t awful.” Of course, Heather Duke wasn’t a random example. Veronica had told Jason about Martha’s crush on Ram. Even if she hadn’t, Martha wasn’t exactly subtle about her pining.

“D’you wanna blow this joint?” Jason asked. Martha frowned.

“Where would we go? You can’t go home, since your mom’s still here.”

“We could just wander around the school,” he said with a shrug.

“Okay,” she said. He didn’t mention the little visit he was planning to Heather Chandler’s locker, but he figured that talk of vandalism would ruin the moment.


	5. Five

Mrs. Dean backed the sedan out of the church parking lot. Little Jason was in the backseat of the car, fiddling with the tie of his scout uniform.

“Alright, so what did we learn from this?” Sally asked her son. Jason was still silent. “Jason?”

“Scouts is poopy,” Jason said, pouting.

“The takeaway is not ‘scouts is poopy’ and you know it,” Mrs. Dean said. “What got you into this situation?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Jason said. At this point, he was full on sulking.

“That’s not what Scoutmaster Kevin said,” Sally said, “or the fire marshall.”

“It’s not fair. They tell you you get to do all this cool stuff in scouts, but then they don’t actually let you do it until you get big.”

“Well, Jay-Jay, that’s because you need to be big before you’re able to do all that stuff without getting hurt,” Mrs. Dean said. She was still upset with her son, just not as much as she was when she’d gotten the call from the fire department.

“Daddy would let me do it, though.”

“Your father…” Sally said, trying to think of a way to phrase her relationship with her husband that wouldn’t psychologically warp her son, “is used to handling fire and things that go boom. He forgets that they can be dangerous.”

“It wasn’t dangerous, though! No one got hurt!” Jason insisted.

“That’s because your troop leader put out the fire before anyone could get hurt,” Sally said. “The thing about fire is that you can’t leave it alone. You have to pay attention to it, or else it just gets worse and worse until you can’t do anything to stop it anymore.”

“I would have stopped it,” Jason huffed.

“And how would you do that, Mr. Pyromaniac?”

“I dunno,” Jason said, “I’d think of something.”

“See, I think part of the problem is you should have thought of something before you started the fire,” Sally said, “that’s an important thing to remember, Jay-Jay: you need to think things through before you do something.”

“Mommy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“You won’t tell Daddy about me getting kicked out of scouts tonight, right?” Jason asked. Sally didn’t need to see her son’s face for her stomach to drop. What kind of life was she giving her son? The fact that they were moving around was one thing, but Bud’s temper-

She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

“No, Jason,” she said softly, “I won’t tell your father.”


	6. Ten

Settling down in Sherwood was an odd experience for Jason. Hell, settling down anywhere was an odd experience for Jason. His dad’s demolitions company kept the Deans moving around from place to place. However, his dad was no longer around after a freak accident during a demolition in Texas, there was no dad to uproot the Deans anymore.

Maybe if he were older, he’d be more saddened by the loss of his father, but even at his young age he still understood the meaning of the one-sided shouting matches between Sally and Big Bud. Right now, the greatest disturbance in his life was starting anew at Sherwood Elementary in Mr. O’Keefe’s 4th grade class.

When he first stepped foot in the room, he was greeted by a girl with curly blonde hair. “I’m Heather. and that’s Heather.” she said, pointing at a brown haired girl who had her nose in a Babysitter’s Club book. “Heather is in Mrs. Falk’s class, but she’s also my friend.”

“Okay?” Jason said, not really sure how to react. Heather made a face.

“You’re weird. I don’t like you,” she said, and she sauntered away. JD took a seat next to two little girls who were coloring together. One was tall for her age, with a blue sweater covered in flowers, and the girl sitting next to her was kind of chubby in a bright pink poncho. The girl in the blue sweater turned to him and held out her hand.

“Are you Jason? Mr. O’Keefe told us you’d be coming. I’m Veronica and that’s Martha,” she said, indicating her companion. “She normally plays with Heather at recess, but I’m sure she’d be willing to make an exception if you wanted to join us.”

“Wait, do you mean the Heather over there,” he said, pointing to the blonde girl.

“No, that’s Heather. Martha plays with Heather,” Veronica said, pointing to the girl who was reading.

That was the moment Jason Dean was introduced to a source of confusion that would last for another eight years.


	7. Fifteen

“Let the record show you bring out the worst in me,” Veronica said, taking a drink from her slurpee.

“Martha just got her braces off. We’re celebrating,” JD said. Veronica made a face.

“Something tells me that Principal Gowan wouldn’t accept that excuse.” Veronica said. Martha herself, of course, seemed more nervous than celebratory. That was probably because the trio was cutting class behind the local 7/11, which had become Jason (who now went by “JD”)’s favorite hangout over the years.

“He would if it came from Kurt and Ram,” JD said, rolling his eyes.

“Ram wouldn’t do that, though,” Martha said. She pulled her arms close to her chest. JD and Veronica shared a look. While Veronica was supposed to be the only one who knew about Martha’s crush on Ram. The entire student body of Westerburg seemed to know. Well, except for Ram himself.

“Sure he wouldn’t,” JD said, exchanging a glance with Veronica. Neither of them was in love with Ram Sweeney. Hell, neither of them really liked the linebacker that much. Still, they sat beside Martha for every football game, each time remembering to bring a blanket, and JD would bring spiked hot chocolate for himself and Veronica (JD told Martha it was some sort of unusual hot chocolate that she wouldn’t like, since he didn’t want to find out whether or not Martha would tell on her friends).

“Whatever,” Martha said, clearly hurt by JD’s comment. He tried to change the subject.

“We forgot the toast!” he exclaimed. Now it was time for the two girls to exchange a glance.

“A toast?” Veronica asked, confused.

“Yes.” JD said, lifting up his slurpee cup. “to Martha. May her teeth remain forever straight.”

“To Martha!” Veronica said, laughing. The trio knocked their cups together and took a big sip, each recoiling from brain freeze mere seconds later.


End file.
